For a religion that supposedly aims to bring peace and harmony to the world, Christianity does a lousy job. Christians have been at each other’s throats for 2,000 years - Arians vs Athanasians, Trinitarians vs Unitarians, Calvinists vs Arminians, Catholics vs Protestants, the list goes on and on. Today’s battle is essentially between conservatives (fundamentalists, Pentecostals and the like) and liberals, but if they ever manage to patch this one up there’s bound to be something else.

The meaning of just about every verse in the Bible has been ferociously disputed by various Christian factions, often with lethal results for some of the contestants and many innocent bystanders who just happened to get in the way. Think Inquisition, witch-burnings, civil wars and the decimation of native populations in the name of ’spreading true Christianity’. There’s a strong argument - I think an overwhelming one - that Christianity cannot possibly be ‘the one true religion’ as its teachings and central principles are so contradictory and utterly imprecise. Christians cannot even decide what the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ actually means. If you don’t believe this, just ask a conservative Christian and a liberal Christian and then compare their answers.

Recently, Don Prout, a very conservative minister who writes for the evangelical weekly New Life, presented a long article about the nature of heaven (19 Jan. 2006). Now, getting to heaven is the primary goal of every evangelical Christian, but do you think they can get the story straight even here? I’ll let Don explain:

I hope the reader does not consider me too cynical. But here I sit, surrounded by a conglomeration of weird books and magazine articles all penned by folk who have recently had a trip to heaven … and returned to write a book about it! The problem is, they all tell differing stories concerning what they saw! …

Take the heavenly visit of Roberts Liardon, for example … [His] best story concerns the heavenly storehouse where he actually saw ‘legs hung from the wall … and shelves filled with neat little packages of eyes: green ones, brown ones, blue ones etc.’ … These were ‘unclaimed blessings … parts of the body people might need’ just waiting to be claimed, by faith, by maimed saints on earth …

Prout goes on to explain that Liardon was temporarily dismissed from the pastorate of his 700-strong church in February 2002 for having a homosexual relationship. Prout cannot resist adding that Liardon’s sexuality ‘casts some doubt on the trustworthiness of the story … [about] his heavenly holiday’, which is as gorgeous a piece of ad hominem reasoning as you’re likely to see.

Elizabeth Bossert made a return trip to heaven in 1948 and noticed that the rewards to be given to faithful Christians are arrayed behind the throne of God, rather like they are at a carnival sideshow. I’ve always been fascinated by what these rewards might be. A lot of Christians think they’re going to get a gold crown but if everyone else has a crown it’s not really much of a reward, is it? Anyway, gold is extremely common in heaven - Percy Collett who visited the place briefly in 1982 confirms the biblical claim that the streets are paved with pure gold and adds the most intriguing information that God’s left hand is covered with feathers, (possibly left behind by a moulting angel?) Percy also tells us that there are dogs in heaven but they do not bark, no beds because you never sleep and ‘when you sit, you sit on nothing’. Also, you can eat all you want ‘and no plumbing is needed’, either beneath the golden streets or, presumably, beneath you!

Heavenly tourist Doug Duble saw ladies with tambourines, hundreds of butterflies, scores of white rabbits (might he have strayed into Wonderland?) and then a herd of dinosaurs. Spielberg would have had a wonderful time if only he’d picked the right religion. Don Prout notes that Duble’s memoir appeared in a magazine also containing an article by Paul Cain ‘who was recognised as a leader in the so-called prophetic ministry until he was recently exposed as homosexual’ - so we can add ‘guilt by association’ to Don’s earlier ad hominem argument.

Jesse Duplantis, who appears on early morning TV over here, was driven up to heaven in a cable car piloted by a blonde-headed angel and had King David act as his tour guide. Talk about influence! Mary Baxter (no relation!), having previously written a best-seller about a trip to hell, followed up with her memories of a heavenly visit during which she saw ‘diamonds everywhere … some as large as blocks of concrete’. Angels have golden buckets for washing away people’s sins. Again, there’s a bit of currency devaluation going on here. If gold and diamonds are lying about all over the place, who needs a diamond-encrusted golden crown or really any jewellery at all? I think I’d rather have a chair and a bed, which by all accounts are in short supply.

Choo Thomas claims that when she went to heaven for a while, Jesus grilled some fish for her. Now this is really something: death in heaven! There are also beach houses sitting around a lake in which Jesus rows a canoe. Sorry, Choo, I think you might have wandered into the Happy Hunting Grounds by mistake. Anyway, Jesus calls Choo ‘Sweetheart’, which is very gallant of him, and finishes up by emphasising to her that unless Christians tithe (i.e. pay one-tenth of their income to the church), ‘they will never see my kingdom’. So that’s jolly good news for the clergy, isn’t it?

The point of all this is that in the weeks after Prout’s article appeared in New Life, he was roundly criticised by correspondents for his diabolical cynicism. Christians should treat God-given visions ‘with reverence, not scoffing’, wrote Dennis Prince (23 Feb. 2006):

Testing [a vision] is simple. Does the vision contradict Scripture, does it exalt Jesus as the only way of salvation, does it encourage godliness and evangelism? I have read many of the books quoted in [Prout's] review and found most or all of them pass admirably.

Prince adds that ‘many of Jesus’ actions were quite unusual e.g. cursing a fig tree …’ Therefore, we can take seriously weird stories about Jesus grilling fish (on a barbie?) and dinosaur herds roaming the heavenly throne-room!

So the next time you’re tempted to think of the Christian church as a united, monolithic, unstoppable force, please don’t. They can’t even agree about heaven.

Filed in: Biblical criticism, Evangelicals